Observation of coherent acoustic and optical phonons in bismuth nanowires by a femtosecond pump-probe technique.

Coherent acoustic and optical phonon oscillations in Bi nanowire samples were studied with a femtosecond pump-probe technique. Laser pulses of 50 fs excited simultaneously acoustic oscillations at a frequency of about 9.5 GHz and optical phonons in the terahertz range. The transmission signal of nanowires on a glass substrate and the signal of light scattered from freestanding nanowires were measured. The acoustic velocity in nanowires was found to be close to that of bulk polycrystalline material. The changes in the optical phonon frequency at different laser fluences were simulated taking into account excitation inhomogeneity, lattice anharmonicity, diffusion, and recombination of the carriers and gave good agreement with experimental results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]